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No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover – Book Review

The book No More Mr Nice Guy delves into family relationships and how they affect your behaviours when it comes to family, relationships, sex and career. No More Mr Nice Guy is written by a psychologist Robert Glover. The validity of the concepts in this book should be more credible than the run of the mill self-improvement book.

It came at the right time when I was starting out as a pick up artist. It opened up my eyes to how family relationships dynamic when I was growing up affect how I led my life: how I asserted myself with girls, in academics and my general behaviour.

The Review of No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover

The Good

The book goes into depth of why the nice guy is actually not that nice. He’s actually dishonesty fundamentally as he attempts to get his needs met in a manipulative and passive aggressive way. Robert Glover also explains how the asshole and the nice guy are actually the same people. They are both acting from the place of insecurity and unworthiness.

It drives home the point that the only one you should please is yourself. Most of the people who are on the nice guy end of the spectrum have to learn how to please themselves more and put their needs first.

It describes the making of a nice guy and attempts to explain how childhood dynamics between the nice guy and his parents affect his behaviour in adulthood. This gave me a lot of insight into my personal relationships with my parents whilst growing up and how it affected my behaviours when it comes to pursuing academic success, and my relationships with the opposite sex.

Having strong boundaries, and defining what you would and not would accept from others in your life is important to taking control of your dating and social life. Pursuing what you want in social groups and interactions is the next step to getting what you want in your social and dating life. The new age self-help industry throws words around like such as self-love, but at the core of it, it is self-esteem.

The Nice Guy is always attempting to meet everybody’s needs and wants, but his own.

I find myself, at certain points of my life, trying to meet everybody needs and wants in a social interaction but my own. Being selfish and your needs and wants met and then helping others unconditionally is a concept: a benevolent selfishness.

You can’t be responsible for how others react towards you. The only responsibility you can have is in your own actions and emotions. The only person you can please and control is yourself.

One common thread behind the book is about ‘needs’ and how children with inadequate parenting can grow up feeling like their own needs are unimportant. This leaks out to all aspects of their adulthood life. The book encourages the reader to assert his needs in the world and get comfortable with getting his needs met in a timely manner.

The Bad

The exercises recommended in the book can be quite repetitive. You don’t actually have to do them all to become ‘No More Mr. Nice guy’, but you’ll just understand the common principles behind the book.

I also felt he could have expanded on the bad boy part, where it was more relatable to me than the Mr. Nice Guy part. Throughout my teenage years, I felt was I the ‘rebel’ and the ‘bad boy’ rather than the Mr. Nice Guy. I still gave too much a fuck what people thought of me, and was still unable to assert myself in a truly confident manner.

Favourite Quotes from No More Mr Nice Guy

“In reality, the primary paradigm of the Nice Guy Syndrome is nothing more than a big covert contract with life. Breaking”

“By trying to please everyone, Nice Guys often end up pleasing no one — including themselves. Seeking”

“In general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy. Humans connect with humans. Hiding one’s humanity and trying to project an image of perfection makes a person vague, slippery, lifeless, and uninteresting.”

Overall Review

It’s complementary to the book Models by Mark Manson. He stressed the importance of looking back at how past experiences such as childhood affects your anxiety with women, behaviors with the opposite sex. This is definitely one of the must reads that I recommend as a Singapore dating coach.